- Jake Wetzel
Jacob Wetzel (born
December 26 ,1976 ) is an American-Canadian rower. He has represented both countries at the World Championships and the Olympics. He was born inSaskatoon, Saskatchewan .College years
As a teenager, Wetzel was on the Canadian Junior Cycling team; he only began rowing in the fall of
1997 at theUniversity of California, Berkeley . His success was immediate and extraordinary. His collegiate boat was undefeated and won the freshman 8 event at the1998 Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship (IRA). That summer Wetzel tried out for and made the Canadian National team in the pair event (2-) and finished seventh at the World Championships inCologne ,Germany .In
1999 ,2001 , and2002 he again competed for Berkeley where he was coached bySteve Gladstone , this time in the varsity 8. All three years his boats won the IRA and were de facto national champions. In 1999 and 2001, his boats were undefeated. In 2002, his boat suffered a single loss to theUniversity of Washington , but beat Washington on several other occasions including the IRA.International competitions
Internationally, Wetzel competed for the United States team in 1999 (Coxed Four (4+) gold medal at the World Championships in St. Catherines) and in 2000 (7th place with the Quad (4x) at the
2000 Summer Olympics in Athens). In 1999, Wetzel was one of the principal subjects in the "Outside Magazine " article "Blood in the Water" on the difficulties and internal competition involved in trying to make a national team boat. [cite news|url=http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/0999/199909blood.html |title=Blood in the Water|author=Max Potter|accessdate=2008-08-18|date=September 1999|publisher=Outside Magazine ] After a two-year pause because of a shoulder injury caused by a mountaineering accident, in2003 Wetzel returned to the international rowing scene and he joined Team Canada. Wetzel made the straight 4 (4-) and he won a gold medal at the2003 world championships inMilan ,Italy . At the2004 Summer Olympics , Wetzel's boat finished second by inches toGreat Britain .In
2005 /2006 Wetzel completed anMSc in Financial Economics atLinacre College ,University of Oxford and theSaïd Business School . He was a member of the victorious Oxford crew in the 2006 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.He also won at the World Championships 2007 in Canada's M8+.
He won the gold medal at the
2008 Summer Olympics in the men's eights withAndrew Byrnes ,Kyle Hamilton , Malcolm Howard,Adam Kreek ,Kevin Light ,Ben Rutledge ,Dominic Sieterle and coxBrian Price . [cite news|url=http://www.tsn.ca/olympics/story/?id=246638&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_olympics |title=Gold in Men's Eight, Bronze in Women's Double, Men's Four |author=The Canadian Press|accessdate=2008-08-18|date=2008-08-18 |publisher=TSN.ca]He announced his retirement from international rowing at the Beijing Olympics; Wetzel will enroll in the PhD programme in Finance at the
University of British Columbia in autumn 2008. [cite news|url=http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=60a56348-19c7-4ca4-8973-23d34f674ebb |title=Wetzel ends rowing career with golden moment|author=Rob Vanstone |accessdate=2008-08-18|date=2008-08-17 |publisher=The Vancouver Sun ]Notes
External links
* [http://www.rowingcanada.org/national_team/bios/hwt_men_2007/ Row Canada Bio]
* [http://www.theboatrace.org Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race Link]
* [http://outside.away.com/outside/magazine/0999/199909blood.html Outside Magazine Article]
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